[il-talk] Fw: Helen Keller!

[Araceli Avina]

Hi Debbie,
Thanks for sharing this with us.  I read it all the way through and it 
was very educational.  It was refreshing to read about new information 
that other authors of the helen Keller books don't focus on because 
they're too busy focusing on the "poor baby" factor.

Araceli Avina, Secretary
Illinois Association of Blind Students
ISVI Advisory Council Member

Sox win!!!!!!!


-----Original Message-----
From: Deborah Kent Stein <dkent5817 at worldnet.att.net>
To: Multiple recipients of NFBnet il-talk Mailing List 
<il-talk at NFBnet.org>
Sent: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 3:01 pm
Subject: [il-talk] Fw: Helen Keller!


I found this a fascinating article and thought you might like to read 
it.

Debbie



The Truth about Helen Keller - Volume 17 No. 1 - Fall 2002 - Rethinking
Schools Online



Children's books about Helen Keller distort her life

By Ruth Shagoury Hubbard

The "Helen Keller story" that is stamped in our collective consciousness
freezes her in childhood; we remember her most vividly at age seven 
when her
teacher, Annie Sullivan, connected her to language through a magical 
moment
at the water pump. We learned little of her life beyond her teen years,
except that she worked on behalf of the handicapped.

But there is much more to Helen Keller's history than a brilliant deaf 
and
blind woman who surmounted incredible obstacles. Helen Keller was a
socialist who believed she was 
able to overcome many of the 
difficulties in
her life because of her class privilege - a privilege not shared by 
most of
her blind or deaf contemporaries. "I owed my success partly to the
advantages of my birth and environment," she said. " I have learned 
that the
power to rise is not within the reach of everyone." More than an icon of
American "can-do," Helen Keller was a tireless advocate of the poor and
disenfranchised.

Helen Keller was someone who worked throughout her long life to achieve
social change; she was an integral part of many important social 
movements
in the 20th century. Her life story could serve as a fascinating 
example for
children, but most picture books about Helen Keller are woefully silent
about her life's work. It's time to start telling the truth about Helen
Keller.

COVERT CENSORSHIP: PROMOTING THE INDIVIDUAL

"The world is moved not only by the mighty stories of heroes, but also 
by
the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker."

Helen Keller

In the last decade, there has been a surge in literature for children 
that
depicts people who have worked for social change. On a recent search for
non-fiction picture books that tell the stories of those involved in 
social
activism, I found scores of books - beautifully illustrated 
multicultural
texts. Initially, I was delighted to be able to share these books with 
kids
in my neighborhood and school. But as my=2
0collection grew, so did my
frustration.

One problem with many of the books is that they stress the individual 
rather
than the larger social movements in which they worked. In his critique 
of
popular portrayals of the Rosa Parks story, educator and author Herb 
Kohl
argues convincingly that her role in the Montgomery bus strike is framed
again and again as that of a poor, tired seamstress acting out of 
personal
frustration rather than as a community leader in an organized struggle
against racism. [See "
The Politics of Children's Literature," p. 37 in Rethinking Our 
Classrooms,
Vol. I]

Picture books frame the stories of many other key community leaders and
social activists in similar ways. Activist and educator Patrick 
Shannon's
careful analysis of the underlying social message of books for young 
readers
highlights this important finding: "Regardless of the genre type, the
authors of these books promoted concern for self-development, personal
emotions, self-reliance, privacy, and competition rather than concern 
for
social development, service to community, cooperation toward shared 
goals,
community, and mutual prosperity" (1988, p. 69).

I first became interested in the activist work of Helen Keller a few 
years
ago when I read James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your
American History Textbook Got Wrong (1995). Loewen concludes that the 
way
that Helen Keller's life story is turned into a "bland maxim" is lyi
ng 
by
omission. When I turned to the many picture books written about her, I 
was
discouraged to discover that books for young children retain that bland
flavor, negating the power of her life work and the lessons she herself
would hope people would take from it. Here is a woman who worked 
throughout
her long life as a radical advocate for the poor, but she is depicted 
as a
kind of saintly role model for people with handicaps.

THE IMAGE OF HELEN KELLER IN PICTURE BOOKS

For the purposes of this investigation, I chose six picture books 
published
 from 1965 through 1997, which are the most readily available from 
bookstores
and websites. Four of the six covers depict the famous moment at the 
well
where Annie, her teacher, spells "water" into Helen's hand. This clichéd
moment is the climax of each book, just as it is in the movies made 
about
her life. To most people, Helen remains frozen in time in her childhood.
According to these picture books, she is to be remembered for two things
after she grew up: her "courage" and her "work with the blind and deaf."

Young Helen Keller, Woman of Courage is typical. The first 29 pages 
bring us
to Helen, age 12, who can read and write "and even speak." The last 
page,
page 30, sums up the remaining 66 years of her life:

When Helen was 20, she did something that many people thought was
impossible. She went to college. Annie went with her 
to help her study.
Helen spent her life helping blind and deaf people. She gave speeches 
and
wrote many books. Helen Keller died on June 1, 1968. But people all 
over the
world still remember her courageous, helpful life.

But courage to do what? The statements that sum up her "courageous
accomplishments" are ambiguous and confusing. "She gave speeches and 
wrote
books." What were they about? What did she do that was so courageous?

None of the children's books I reviewed mentioned that in 1909 Helen 
Keller
became a socialist and a suffragist - movements that framed most of her
writing.
"I felt the tide of opportunity rising and longed for a voice that 
would be
equal to the urge sweeping me out into the world," she wrote.

Nor do those books tell readers that Helen Keller's publishing options
dwindled because she wrote passionately for women's voting rights and
against war and corporate domination. In order to promote the social 
justice
she believed in, she decided she would take lessons to improve her 
speaking
voice so that she could publicly speak out against injustice. This was 
true
courage. Even after three years of daily work, her voice was uneven and
difficult to control.
Though she was embarrassed by her speaking voice and terrified of the
crowds, Helen Keller boldly went on the lecture circuit. She later wrote
that it felt as if she were going to her own hanging: "Terror invaded my
flesh, my mind fr
oze, my heart stopped beating. I kept repeating, 'What
shall I do? What shall I do to calm this tumult within me?'"

The picture books omit the courage that took Helen Keller farther away 
from
her home to visit povertystricken neighborhoods in New York City, where 
she
witnessed the horror of the crowded, unhealthy living conditions in 
tenement
buildings. Outraged about the child labor practices she encountered, she
began to educate herself about efforts to organize unions and the 
violence
that organizers and strikers faced. She wrote angry articles about the
Ludlow Massacre, where, in an attempt to break a miners' strike, the
Colorado National Guard shot 13 people and burned alive 11 children and 
two
women. The Ludlow Mine belonged to the powerful millionaire John D.
Rockefeller, and Rockefeller had paid the wages of the National Guard. 
When
newspapers hesitated to publish her articles, Helen Keller spoke out
publicly against Rockefeller: "I have followed, step by step, the
developments in Colorado, where women and children have been ruthlessly
slaughtered. Mr. Rockefeller is a monster of capitalism," she declared. 
"He
gives charity in the same breath he permits the helpless workmen, their
wives and children to be shot down."

Helen Keller was not afraid to ask tough, "impolite" questions: "Why in 
this
land of great wealth is there great poverty?" she wrote in 1912. "Why 
[do]
children toil in the mills while thousands of men cann
ot get work, why 
[do]
women who do nothing have thousands of dollars a year to spend?"

This courage to speak out for what she believed in is also ignored in 
the
picture book Helen Keller: Courage in the Dark. Here, her achievements 
are
summed up on the final page:

Helen's story has been retold over and over. She has been the subject of
books, plays, films, and television programs. The United States Postal
Service has dedicated a stamp to her. And an organization with her name
works to help blind people. Helen Keller's life was filled with silence 
and
darkness. But she had the courage and determination to light her days. 
This
is courage at its blandest - and most passive.

Notice that Helen herself is simply an icon - a "subject" of the media, 
the
name behind an organization, and of course, best of all, an image on a
stamp!

What a contrast to Helen Keller's own commitment to an active, 
productive
life. When she wrote her autobiography in 1929, Keller declared, "I 
resolved
that whatever role I did play in life, it would not be a passive one."
Children don't learn that Helen Keller not only supported organizations 
to
support blind people, she supported radical unions like the Industrial
Workers of the World, becoming a Wobbly herself. Nor do they learn of 
her
support for civil-rights organizations like the NAACP and that W.E.B. 
DuBois
printed news of her financial donations and the tex
t of her letter of
support in the organization's publication. "Ashamed in my very soul, I
behold in my beloved south-land the tears of those oppressed, those who 
must
bring up their sons and daughters in bondage to be servants, because 
others
have their fields and vineyards, and on the side of the oppressor is 
power."

The two best-selling picture books on Helen Keller listed at amazon.com 
are:
A Picture Book of Helen Keller (Adler) and A Girl Named Helen Keller
(Lundell). The theme of passive courage is at the center of both these 
books
as well. At least in Lundell's book, Helen is credited with some action.
After focusing on her childhood for 42 of the book's 44 pages, the 
author
sums up Helen Keller's life with the following list:

In her life, Helen wrote 5 books. She traveled many places. She met 
kings
and presidents. She spoke to groups of people around the world. Most of 
the
work she did was to help people who were blind or deaf. She was a warm 
and
caring person. People loved her in return. The life of Helen Keller 
brought
hope to many.

Helen Keller herself would probably be horrified by this vague and
misleading representation of her life's work. She spoke to groups of 
people
around the world - ah, but what did she say? Lundell doesn't hint that 
she
said things like, "The future of America rests on the leaders of 80 
million
working men and women and their childre
n. To end the war and 
capitalism, all
you need to do is straighten up and fold your arms." Lundell is equally
vague about the content of her books, neglecting to mention essays such 
as
"How I Became a Socialist"or books such as Out of the Dark: Essays, 
Letters,
and Addresses on Physical and Social Vision (1913).

Lundell's synopsis of Keller's accomplishments focuses on the famous 
people
- "kings and presidents" - who she met in her life. But at the core of 
her
commitment was being part of work for political change with others, 
taking
part in rallies, marches, meeting with friends to talk politics and to
strategize. "I have never felt separated from my fellow men by the 
silent
dark," she wrote. "Any sense of isolation is impossible since the doors 
of
my heart were thrown open and the world came in." She showed that 
connection
to her fellow workers in her actions again and again.

One fascinating example occurred in 1919, when Keller starred in
Deliverance, a silent movie about her life. Helen supported the Actors
Equity Union's strike by refusing to cross the picket line to attend the
opening - and by joining a protest march with the striking actors.

David Adler's Picture Book of Helen Keller is the best-selling 
illustrated
biography of Helen Keller for young readers. Like the other books I
reviewed, this one focuses almost solely on her life before graduating 
from
Radcliffe. The two important ad
ult episodes Adler includes are her 
visits to
blind soldiers during World War II and her work for the American 
Foundation
for the Blind. The book ignores her phenomenal and productive life work 
as a
writer and social activist. On the last page of the book, Adler sums up 
her
life work: "Helen Keller couldn't see or hear, but for more than eighty
years, she had always been busy. She read and wrote books. She learned 
how
to swim and even how to ride a bicycle. She did many things well. But 
most
of all, Helen Keller brought hope and love to millions of handicapped
people."

Adler has space to note that Helen Keller learned to swim and ride a
bicycle, but not to state that she helped found the American Civil 
Liberties
Union or take on the medical establishment to change health care for
infants. The inadequacy of the information in these books for children 
is
staggering. Her life of hard work is reduced to the phrase "she had 
always
been busy."

Children could also learn from Helen Keller's compassion and 
recommitment to
pacifism after her visit to Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1948. Deeply 
moved by
the people she met and what they described to her, she wrote that the
experience "scorched a deep scar" in her soul and that she was more than
ever determined to fight against "the demons of atomic warfare ... and 
for
peace."

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS STORY?

"So long as I confine my=2
0activities to social service and the blind, 
they
compliment me extravagantly, calling me 'archpriestess of the 
sightless,'
'wonder woman,' and 'a modern miracle," Helen wrote to her friend Robert
LaFollette, an early pacifist who ran for president as a third-party
Progressive candidate in 1924. "But when it comes to a discussion of
poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of wrong economics - that 
the
industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of the 
physical
deafness and blindness in the world - that is a different matter!"

While she was alive, Helen Keller fought against the media's tendency 
to put
her on a pedestal as a "model" sweet, good-natured, handicapped person 
who
overcame adversity. The American Foundation for the Blind depended on 
her as
spokesperson, but some of its leaders were horrified by her activism. As
Robert Irwin, the executive director of the foundation, wrote to one of 
the
trustees, "Helen Keller's habit of playing around with Communists and
near-Communists has long been a source of embarrassment to her 
conservative
friends. Please advise!"

In the years since her death, her lifelong work as a social justice 
activist
has continued to be swept under the rug. As her biographer Dorothy 
Herrmann
concludes:

"Missing from her curriculum vitae are her militant socialism and the 
fact
that she once had to be protected by six policemen from an admiring 
crowd of
0A2,000 people in New York after delivering a fiery speech protesting
America's entry into World War I. The war, she told her audience, to
thunderous applause, was a capitalist ploy to further enslave the 
workers.
As in her lifetime, Helen Keller's public image remains one of an 
angelic,
sexless, deaf-blind woman who is smelling a rose as she holds a Braille 
book
open on her lap."

But why is her activism so consistently left out of her life stories?
Stories such as this are perpetuated to fill a perceived need. The 
mythical
Helen Keller creates a politically conservative moral lesson, one that
stresses the ability of the individual to overcome personal adversity 
in a
fair world. The lesson we are meant to learn seems to be: "Society is 
fine
the way it is. Look at Helen Keller! Even though she was deaf and 
blind, she
worked hard - with a smile on her face - and overcame her disabilities. 
She
even met kings, queens, and Presidents, and is remembered for helping 
other
handicapped people. So what do you have to complain about in this great
nation of ours?"

This demeaning view of Helen Keller celebrates her in a way that keeps 
her
in her place. She never gets to be an adult; rather she is framed as a
grown-up child who overcame her handicap. Like other people with
disabilities, Helen Keller deserves to be known for herself and not 
defined
by her blindness or her deafness. She saw herself as 
a free and 
self-reliant
person - as she wrote, "a human being with a mind of my own."

It's time to move beyond the distorted and dangerous Helen Keller myth,
repeated in picture book after picture book. It's time to stop lying to
children and go beyond Keller's childhood drama and share the remarkable
story of her adult life and work. What finer lesson could children learn
than the rewards of the kind of engaged life that Helen Keller lived as 
she
worked with others toward a vision of a more just world?

Ruth Shagoury Hubbard (
hubbard at lclark.edu.)
teaches language arts and literacy courses at Lewis and Clark College in
Portland, Ore.

HELEN KELLER CHRONOLOGY

David Adler's best-selling A Picture Book of Helen Keller includes an 
ending
chronology, typical of the dates that other authors include about Helen
Keller's life:

1880 Born on June 27 in Tuscumbia, Alabama.

1882 As a result of illness, became deaf and blind.

1887 Met Anne Sullivan.

1900 Entered Radcliffe College.

1924 Began to work for the American Federation for the Blind.

1936 Ann Sullivan died on October 20.

1946 Visited injured soldiers.

1964 Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon
Johnson.

1968 Died on June 1. There are a few dates I would add to this 
chronology
that highlight her lifelong commitment to social justice:

1903 The Story of My Life is published - first in a series of20articles 
in
The Ladies' Home Journal, and then as a book.

1907 Helen writes a groundbreaking article for The Ladies' Home Journal 
in
an effort to prevent blindness among infants caused by the mother's 
venereal
disease. (She rallies forces to convince the medical establishment to 
treat
children's eyes at birth with a cleansing solution as a regular 
procedure.)

1908 Publication of The World I Live In.

1909 Becomes a socialist and a suffragist.

1912 Publicly speaks out in favor of birth control, and in support of
Margaret Sanger's work

1914 Demonstrates with the Woman's Peace Party to call for peace in 
Europe;
after the demonstration, she makes an impassioned speech for pacifism 
and
socialism in crowded Carnegie Hall.

1915 Writes articles publicly denouncing Rockefeller as a "monster of
Capitalism," responsible for the Ludlow Massacre, (at his coal mine in
Ludlow, Colorado) where men, women, and children were killed in a bloody
confrontation between strikers and the militia.

1916 Openly supports the Industrial Workers of the World.

1917 Donates money to the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (NAACP) and writes a supportive article in the NAACP 
Journal.

1918 Helps found the American Civil Liberties Union to fight for 
freedom of
speech.

1919 Stars in Deliverance, a silent movie about her life; supports 
Actors
Equity Union's strike by refusing to cross the picket line
 to attend the
opening.

1924 Campaigns for Robert LaFollette, a Progressive running for 
president as
a third-party candidate.

1929 Publication of Midstream: My Later Life.

1948 Visits "the black silent hole" that had once been Hiroshima and
Nagasaki and recommits herself to the anti-war movement.

1961 Suffers first stroke; retires from public life.

RESOURCES ON HELEN KELLER

Lawlor, Laurie. 2001. Helen Keller: Rebellious Spirit. (New York: 
Holiday
House). A new biography for adolescents with excellent Photographs to
document Keller's life.

Herrman, Dorothy. 1989. Helen Keller: A Life. (Chicago, Ill: University 
of
Chicago Press). A fine recent biography that covers her adult life as 
well
as her famous childhood.

Keller, Helen. 1929. Midstream: My Later Life. (Garden City, NY: 
Doubleday).
Helen Keller's fascinating autobiography as an adult gives readers a 
taste
of her writing voice, her passionate beliefs, and her social 
convictions.

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